General Thoughts on Cooking

There’s more than one way to skin a catfish. You can slice it with a knife, tug it with pliers, or just get someone else to do it. And these “techniques” actually represent the three fundamental approaches cooks can follow: finesse, brute force, and outsourcing.

All cooks—professional and recreational alike—would love to finesse everything, but finesse takes time. Brute force and outsourcing are convenient, but are often synonymous with lower quality. While sometimes it makes sense to use finesse and brunoise your garlic, other times it makes sense to use brute force and just throw it in a food processor. I would never outsource minced garlic, but I am in favor of outsourcing ingredients like pomegranate juice or Twinkies, which are best left to specialists.